Buzzfeed-like news site for Indonesia raises series A

Winston (l) and William Utomo.

IDN Media, a Buzzfeed-like new media company from Indonesia, today announced it has raised a series A round led by North Base Media. GDP Venture, East Ventures, and MNM Creative also participated. The size of the round wasn’t disclosed.

Brothers William and Winston Utomo founded the company about two years ago in their hometown Surabaya. The main site IDNtimes currently clocks about 13 million visits a month, says Winston, the company’s CEO. IDN Media also comprises women-focused sister site Popbela, as well as video production and event management departments.

The new funds will go into developing video content, strengthening the branded content team, and building an automated ad platform that lets brands use the IDN Media sites as marketing channels.

IDNtimes targets Indonesia’s “Gen Z and millenials,” Winston explains. It speaks to people between the ages of 15 to 35, in urban centers across Indonesia. Its top six cities in terms of where the traffic comes from are Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar, Yogyakarta, and Denpasar. Unlike at Buzzfeed, “cat content” isn’t much of a thing on IDNtimes. Its formula is a mix of light commentary on daily news, listicles with things like dating or productivity tips, and stories about ghosts, crime, and urban legends.

One of IDNtimes’ most surprising viral hits was an article that compares the murder or a young woman in Jakarta to a similar event described in a Detective Conan comic. “We look at news and we try to find a different, unique angle.”

One or two years away from turning a profit

IDN Media’s main sources of revenue at this point come from native advertising and the events it’s running in Surabaya. There, IDN Media is known for its yearly festival with a stage for Youtube stars, music, and food stalls. Expanding the festival to other cities like Jakarta next year is part of IDN media’s brand building strategy.

“Our revenue at this point comes about 30 from events and 70 percent from native advertising,” Winston says. He wants to make the company profitable within one to two years.

“We are doing OK money-wise,” he says. “In this round, we weren’t looking so much for financial support, we were looking for strategic partners with experience in media.”

Lead investor North Base Media also invested in Rappler, a popular news site from the Philippines. GDP Venture is behind Indonesia’s largest online forum Kaskus and news site Beritagar.

IDNtimes is up against Kapanlagi, a local media company with a similar target demographic that was recently acquired by Singapore’s MediaCorp. Another competitor is Hipwee, which was acquired by ASX-listed social entertainment platform Migme last year.

(Update 9:47pm: Figures mentioning IDN Media’s reader age bracket and the percentage distribution of revenue were edited on Winston’s request.)